


brighter than sunshine

by sonlali



Series: Fics from Season Six [5]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Canon Queer Relationship, Cuddling & Snuggling, Discussions About Having Children, Emotions, Episode: s06e05 The Premiere, Hungry Hungry Hippos - Freeform, Internet Search Histories, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22671151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonlali/pseuds/sonlali
Summary: david and patrick go through each other's search histories the morning after patrick has his wisdom teeth removed. it turns out they both made some interesting searches the night before.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: Fics from Season Six [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1621702
Comments: 43
Kudos: 253





	brighter than sunshine

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers from s06e05 the premiere
> 
> title from "Brighter Than Sunshine" by Aqualung (duh)
> 
> i decided to have david smoke a joint before the premiere, rather than take one of patrick's prescription pills because recreational prescription pill usage can have extremely destructive effects on a person's life. i like to think that david wouldn't be so flippant about taking pills at this point in his life.

David is engrossed in his book—a psychological thriller recommended by Marcy, who has unexpectedly dark tastes in literature—when the Patrick-shaped lump of covers beside him makes a loud snuffling noise. David marks his page with a bookmark and looks over as the blankets rustle and Patrick’s face emerges. One brown eye cracks open slowly to peer blearily around the room. 

“Morning, sunshine.” David smirks. 

Patrick rubs at his eyes—David resists scolding him for potentially damaging the sensitive skin—and sits up against the headboard. 

“Wha’ time‘sit?” Patrick rasps, his words slurring together groggily. 

“Coming up on 11.” David smiles at his adorably sleep-rumpled fiancé.

“Wow, I can’t believe I slept so late!”

“Mm, well, this is at least the seventh time you’ve woken up since I managed to get you into bed last night so.” 

Patrick furrows his brow in confusion. 

“Mhm, yeah, turns out the pain relievers have an _interesting_ effect on you.”

“Oh god, what did I say this time?” Patrick groans.

“Oh, it wasn’t really what you were saying, just your incredible enthusiasm for a wide variety of topics.”

Patrick cocks his head to the side, looking like a confused puppy. David reaches over to pet the back of his head affectionately. 

“Yep, after we got back from the _Crows_ disaster, it took me about an hour to get you to lie down and stay in bed. You had a veritable cornucopia of ideas for exciting new projects you just had to get to work on immediately, like making pancakes, painting the bathroom, and planning a playlist largely consisting of boy bands from the ‘90s for our wedding.” 

“I did all that?!”

“Oh god no! Imagine.” David squeezes Patrick’s shoulder. “No, I was able to distract you from actually doing any of these things. Except the playlist. I believe you started that on your phone.”

Patrick reaches for his phone on the bedside table but pauses before unlocking it. 

“Wait, you said I kept waking up?”

“Oh yeah, all of this was before you fell asleep the first time. But you woke up nearly every hour with something new you wanted to do. After the third time, I had to hide your laptop because you wanted to review the store’s finances. I thought it would be best if you didn’t edit any of your little spreadsheets in your altered state. Your laptop is on the top shelf in the kitchen cabinet, by the way, because I know you can’t reach there, sweetie.”

Patrick scowls and David leans over to kiss his temple. 

“The fourth time you woke up, you were back on your quest for lasagna, so I had to hide all the sharp kitchen utensils—also on the top shelf. At this point, I was a bit tired of getting up every hour, so I just let you go about your business the rest of the night. You never stayed up for very long before coming back to bed.” 

“So, you just slept while I wandered around the apartment doing god knows what?” Patrick says incredulously.

“Mkay, I’m not liking this judgmental tone. I made sure you wouldn’t be able to hurt yourself or hurt the store’s finances, and I would have heard if you did anything completely wild. You weren’t exactly being quiet.”

Patrick shakes his head and unlocks his phone. “I guess I should check out this playlist I made, huh?” 

David leans over eagerly, but Patrick is frowning at his phone. 

“Uh… huh, I have multiple confirmation emails from purchases made last night,” Patrick says slowly. 

“Oh my god!” David gasps, mentally facepalming. “I can’t believe I forgot to hide your phone! My mom and Alexis always went on stoned shopping sprees back when we had regular access to pills. What did you buy?”

“It looks like my first purchase was three identical blue button-up shirts…” Patrick begins, and David snorts out a laugh. 

“Oh my god, Patrick!” David wipes a tear from his eye and tries to get control of his laughter. “Wow, excellent purchase, honey. You _definitely_ needed more blue button-ups.”

“Interesting how my purchases when on painkillers are still more practical than some of the things you buy completely sober.” Patrick shoots back. 

David’s jaw drops. “Okay! First of all—”

“That wasn’t the only purchase,” Patrick interrupts, and David decides to graciously ignore the completely incorrect assessment of his impeccable tastes in favor of leaning closer to get a better view of Patrick’s phone.

“Uh… well, next it appears I purchased a blanket. A very expensive blanket, I might add.”

“Let me see!” David grabs the phone from Patrick’s hands and gasps. “Ooh, Patrick, this blanket is _very_ nice. And not exactly your usual taste.”

It’s a gorgeous black and white cashmere throw. David loves it immediately. He zooms in on the photo and brings the phone close to his face, trying to digitally absorb the warmth of the perfect blanket before Patrick inevitably cancels the order. It really is quite expensive.

“Ah, well, uh…” Patrick rubs at the back of his neck, looking sheepish suddenly. There’s a faint blush coloring his cheeks. “You’re always cold and I was thinking of buying you a nice blanket. Apparently the pain relievers helped make that decision for me.”

“Patrick, no. This is out of our price range. I mean, it’s _gorgeous_ , don’t get me wrong, but it’s too much.”

“It’s nonrefundable.” Patrick shrugs, not looking nearly as concerned as David would have anticipated. “You deserve something nice, and it will be a nice blanket for us to cuddle under on movie nights. I can just move some things around on our monthly budget.”

David’s eyes fill with tears. He tilts his head back and blinks several times to keep them from falling. He’s completely overwhelmed by this wonderful, thoughtful man beside him. While under the influence of pain relievers, Patrick is just as practical as always when buying for himself but drops an enormous sum of money on a perfect gift for David. 

“David.” Patrick reaches for his hand and laces their fingers together. “It’s okay, I have funds set aside for months when I go over budget. I can just draw from there and be careful next month. It won’t even cut into our wedding budget.”

“Ugh!” David swats at Patrick with his free hand. “Stop being so sweet and thoughtful. My eyes are already puffy from my sleep being interrupted all night, thank you very much, so I really can’t afford to cry right now.”

“Okay, David.” Patrick brings their joined hands to his lips and kisses David’s knuckles so tenderly that David worries his heart may burst with love.

“Mm, okay.” David clears his throat and picks up Patrick’s phone from his lap. “Let’s see what else you were up to last night!”

“I think those were the only two purchases...” The way Patrick’s eyes shift to the side tells David that these are absolutely _not_ the only purchases Patrick made. David looks at the next confirmation email.

“Wow! That is a _lot_ of lube. Someone was feeling very ambitious last night.” David waggles his eyebrows at Patrick.

“Well, we were running low…” Patrick blushes adorably, and David can’t resist kissing his flushed cheek.

“I’m certainly not complaining, honey.” David closes out of Patrick’s email and opens the web browser, flipping through several open tabs. “Hm, it appears you also did quite a bit of googling last night. You watched a video of a hippo giving birth—nice. Your specific search term was ‘hippohiphopapotumus’ in case you were wondering. And then you opened several tabs with photos of lasagna. I didn’t realize you were so fond of lasagna, Patrick.”

“My mom used to make it a lot when I was a kid.” Patrick shrugs and smiles shyly. “I guess I was just thinking of that.”

David bites his cheek to keep his grin from overtaking his entire face. _How is this man so fucking cute?_

“Mkay, and then it looks like you did quite a few searches for tropical resorts. You going somewhere, honey?”

“Oh, I guess I was probably brainstorming honeymoon locations.” 

“Oh.” David clears his throat. “I thought… I thought we were going to wait on the honeymoon for a few months after the wedding? To, um, give us a chance to save up more money.”

“Yeah, we are. But I still wanted to… think about it, I suppose.”

Before David can respond, Patrick’s phone pings in his hand signaling an incoming email.

“Uh oh.” David opens the email and shimmies playfully. “Looks like you _did_ make one more purchase.”

“Oh god.” Patrick squeezes his eyes shut, obviously able to recognize from David’s glee that it’s something embarrassing.

“Mr. Patrick Brewer, you are now the proud owner of the used and in moderate condition tabletop game known as.... Hungry, Hungry Hippos!”

“What?!” Patrick snatches his phone from David’s grasp and stares in disbelief. 

David is laughing so hard his stomach hurts. He never dreamed he could be this happy, laugh so much, feel such enormous joy until Patrick came into his life. Patrick’s mouth is gaping open as he gawks at his phone. David can see a piece of gauze pressed against the inside of Patrick’s cheek, and there’s a tiny bit of drool dried at the corner of his mouth. It should be gross—it is a little bit—but David is so incredibly in love. 

“Alright then.” Patrick snaps out of his Hungry, Hungry Hippos trance and lunges for David’s phone. “I know I’m not the only one who googles ridiculous things.”

“Excuse you.” David pokes Patrick in the chest. “Remember that I smoked a joint last night before the premiere, so I’m not entirely at blame for any ludicrous searches.”

“Sure, David. I once saw you search for how to spell the word ‘eight’ while completely sober.”

“Okay! I _knew_ how to spell it, but the book I was reading said the word entirely too often, so it stopped looking like a word after a while and I… just needed to make sure.”

“Naturally. So, you don’t mind me looking through your history from last night then?” Patrick smirks at David.

David remembers when he gave Patrick the passcode to his phone. It had felt like a level of intimacy and trust he never would have imagined possible when he realized he really had nothing to hide from Patrick. Now, as David abruptly recalls just exactly what he had been searching last night, he regrets that intimacy. 

“David, there’s at least 12 tabs open just about proper care after wisdom teeth extraction. And on alternatives to prescription pain relievers?” Patrick’s voice rises in a question. 

“Yes, well, you can never be too cautious. I wanted to make sure we did everything correctly while you were healing. And you really want to avoid being on the prescription pain pills much longer than a few days. They’re highly addictive, and I’ve seen a lot of people’s lives fall apart over pills. So, I was doing some research to... take care of you.” 

“David…” 

“It’s really not a big deal.” David tries to wave away the conversation, but Patrick plows on.

“You’re a very good person, David. Thank you for researching how to take care of me.”

“Anyway, so, that’s what I was searching for last night. Nothing interesting.” David reaches for his phone, but Patrick is already scrolling through his search history. 

“David, you looked up a recipe for lasagna.” Patrick sounds entirely too awestruck over a google search for a pasta dish. 

His face is doing that thing where he looks like the human embodiment of the heart-eyes emoji and David has to look away. It’s too much. Even after spending two years with Patrick, the open sincerity in Patrick’s eyes is sometimes still too much for David. It makes David’s stomach flip and his heart race because Patrick’s face is so soft and so filled with love because of _him_. David takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, desperately trying to regain control of his emotions. 

“Okay, well, _obviously_ I won’t be making a lasagna,” David begins, striving for a casual tone. “But I thought… maybe… we could make one together. I would supervise, of course.”

“Okay, David, that sounds great.” Patrick’s smile somehow manages to get even softer. Blessedly, before David can combust from too much genuine emotion, Patrick returns his attention to David’s phone. “Just one question. Exactly how much time last night did you spend researching different types of pasta noodles?”

David’s neck burns with embarrassment. He had forgotten about that.

“Um, well, I was hungry and looking at pictures of lasagna and… I started thinking about just how many different types of pasta there are. There’s a lot of different noodles, Patrick! And I was curious…”

Patrick laughs brightly, his face splitting into a brief grin before switching to a grimace of pain. He raises a hand to his swollen jaw and whines.

“Serves you right for laughing at me,” David snarks.

“Wow, David. Did you learn that charming bedside manner from all your oral care research last night or does that just come naturally?”

“Mm, well, if you’re nice, maybe I’ll demonstrate all I know about _oral care_ later. Let me get you an ice pack.”

Patrick laughs again as David gets up to retrieve an ice pack from the kitchen. When he returns, Patrick is still smiling affectionately. David holds the ice to Patrick’s jaw and kisses his cheek, while Patrick returns his gaze to David’s phone. David is mildly entranced by the soft curve of Patrick’s lips, his attention drifting, so he doesn’t realize what Patrick will discover next until it’s too late.

“David?” Patrick’s pretty pink lips turn downward and a crease forms between his eyebrows. 

A wave of realization rolls through David and he wishes more than anything that he could go back a few seconds. No matter how uncomfortable David is with the aching sincerity of Patrick’s expression after learning that David was researching lasagna recipes and proper dental care, no matter how irritated he is by Patrick laughing at his numerous pasta searches—this is infinitely worse.

“David, why were you reading about couples with differing views on children?” Patrick’s voice is slow and uncertain.

“I don’t… I didn’t…” David trips over half-formed excuses. “I just stumbled upon those and thought it would be… interesting to read?”

“David, you searched for ‘will my partner resent me for life if we don’t have children?’ Which… is not the best search term for optimizing your results, but it is certainly to the point.” 

David opens and closes his mouth several times, unsure how to respond.

“David, I told you I’m happy with the life I have—the life we have. Did you… did you not believe me?”

“No, of course I believe you!” David curses the way his voice wavers because he _does_ believe Patrick. He really does. It’s just… “Patrick, are you sure? Because I-I would really rather know now than several years down the line and then we have to get a divorce, and I move back to the motel, and what happens to the store? And I don’t know how… or if I could… I couldn’t…”

“David, sweetheart, slow down. Breathe for me. Deep breaths.” Patrick cradles David’s face in his hands, his thumbs sweeping away the tears David didn’t even realize were falling.

“I ju-just want you to be happy,” David says between ragged breaths. “You deserve to be happy, and you seemed really happy when you were imagining having a baby.”

“David, I was high as fuck on anesthesia. I was also apparently really enthusiastic about lasagna and Hungry, Hungry Hippos.”

“It’s just… you do so much for me, and you always make sure I have what I want. I’m afraid that you… maybe are sometimes so focused on giving that you… push your own wants aside.” David chews on his lower lip.

“David, c’mere.” Patrick takes the ice pack from David and sets it aside. He then gently maneuvers their bodies so that David is curled under Patrick’s arm, his head resting on Patrick’s chest. Patrick runs his fingers through David’s hair soothingly. “I think maybe I need to do a better job explaining my feelings on children. All my life I assumed I would have children, but you know, I also assumed I was straight.”

David huffs out a weak laugh and snuggles closer to Patrick. He wants to interrupt, but he also knows Patrick needs to keep talking.

“I was happy with the idea of having children. I like kids and I’m good with them. But when I realized I was gay, I reevaluated a lot of other things in my life too. My thoughts on kids haven’t changed—”

David opens his mouth—a hundred different panicked words bursting to make themselves heard—but Patrick cuts him off before he manages more than a tremulous inhalation.

“Not yet, love. Let me finish. My thoughts haven’t changed, but my understanding of those thoughts, and of myself, did change. Being with you, I’ve learned a lot about who I am. And David, I do like kids, and if I was with a partner who wanted them, I might have wanted them too. To me, it’s not a huge, important part of my life—being a father, I mean. I _could_ potentially be happy having children, but I’m also very happy if I don’t. Does that make sense?”

“Not really.” David frowns, spinning his engagement rings around anxiously until Patrick lays a hand over his, intertwining their fingers.

“Think of it this way—some people want children, some people don’t, and some people would be happy either way. For me, it’s more important that we do what is right for us—together.”

“And what’s right for us is… not having a baby?” David pulls away to look Patrick in the eyes.

“Exactly. David, I’m happy with you and with the life we have together. I’m excited for our future and everything it may hold. That is what I want from my life. _You_ are what I want.” Patrick places their joined hands over David’s heart.

“It’s… _you_ are what I want too.” David twists his mouth to the side, the last tendrils of anxiety ebbing away under Patrick’s fond smile. Patrick is looking at him with such open adoration that David could swear at that moment he is floating—his body weightless and his heart soaring.

“That’s a relief, marriage would be a bit awkward if you didn’t,” Patrick quips.

“Mm, okay, I’m never awkward.”

“Sure, David.” Patrick leans in the capture his lips in a sweet kiss, effectively shutting David up until a ping from Patrick’s phone interrupts the moment.

Patrick unlocks his phone and groans. David peers eagerly at the screen and nearly chokes on a laugh.

“Oh my god, Patrick! Your Hungry, Hungry Hippos game is out for delivery **today**! Good thing you paid extra for that expedited shipping. Now we’ll be able to make your Hungry, Hungry Hippos dream come true by this evening!”

“I can’t wait,” Patrick sighs and shakes his head wearily.

“I can’t wait to marry you.” David blurts, surprising himself with his candor. His face warms, abashed by his unplanned earnest confession. It’s completely irrational—David knows how much Patrick loves him—but sometimes he still feels a pang of unease at allowing Patrick to see past the hard protective shell he spent years constructing, to crack himself open and share with Patrick all the vulnerable parts inside. 

But Patrick always takes such gentle care of the most fragile pieces of David. 

“I can’t wait to marry you too, David.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on tumblr [@landofsonlali](https://landofsonlali.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
